Making Animated Toys - All Day Demo

Registration

Making Animated Toys – $35.00

All Day Demonstration on the design and making of animated toys for children.

Registration is closed

Ever wonder how someone goes about making a child's toy that wobbles, bounces, and moves about? Would you like to make toys for grandchildren or as gifts or to sell? Our demonstrator, Richard Dlugo, will show you how its done.

Richard Dlugo is a retired music teacher who began making toys many years ago. After retiring he developed an interest in animated toys. He has designed and sold many toy types at shows and craft fairs. He has been published in the AAW magazine, last December and August of this year and will be publishing another AAW article in the spring on toy critters.

Friday’s workshop will include a number of demonstrations on toy making. We’ll start off with an overview of design and then focus on a number of mechanisms that can be used to animate toys. Each will be shown and explained along with a model that illustrates its use. We’ll cover cams, gears, yokes, bent bars, springs and more.

Many wooden toys call for the use of wheels and so another session will be focused on making your own wheels. Oh sure, you can buy them cheap on-line but why be vanilla when you can be sorbet? Designs that go well beyond the ordinary machine-made wheels will be shown. Included will be oversize wheels, textured tires, and spoked wheels. You’ll also see a some decorative techniques to add pizzazz to your inventions.

When we think of wooden toys we often start with images of cars, trucks, airplanes and other construction equipment, pretty much boy focused. But what about the young ladies who might want to play with those too but would also like something in their own realm. This session will focus on some items fit for her and include some sweet treats that would fit right into that little girl’s imagination kitchen.

Animals, critters and tiny people. Demonstrated will be designs and techniques for producing the characters that can be part of an animated toy or even stand alone in a play neighborhood that comes alive with little friends and pets.

So plan to come out and see some toys and techniques that can make you even more popular than Santa!

The demonstration day will be at the workshop of the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers, just around the corner from the Multnomah Art Center. We'll start at 8:30am, have an hour for lunch and end by 3:30pm.